The Leather Duke

“Game for what, Linda?” asked Fred Wendland. “This is all a little too fast for me.”

“How can you be so dense?” cried Linda. “What’ve we been talking about all through dinner?”

“Why, that horrible murder.”

“And Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Cragg are going to do a stake-out. What does that suggest?”

“They’re going to, ah, well what are they going to do?”

“I’m afraid we’ve got to run now,” cut in Johnny.

Linda Towner got to her feet. “Wait — I’m going with you.”

“Oh no,” said Johnny quickly. “You couldn’t possibly.” He appealed to Linda’s father. “Little Italy, hardly the place for—”

“Of course. Linda, sit down,” said Harry Towner.

“I’m not afraid, Dad. It’ll be fun — watching from a dark doorway... watching.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Towner,” Johnny insisted. “If it were possible, I’d let you come along. But it isn’t.”

Linda looked at him, sighed and seated herself. “All right, but I want to know all about it tomorrow. You’ll tell me?”

“Yes,” said Johnny, “I will.”

“I’d like to hear it, too,” chimed in Elliott Towner.

Johnny gave him a faint smile and tapped Sam’s shoulder. “Come on, Sam. You’ll excuse us...?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Fletcher,” boomed Harry Towner.

Sam got up reluctantly from the table and followed Johnny. As they left the grill room, he said peevishly, “I can’t understand why it is I never get around to the dessert. Somethin’ always happens...”

“Something much more drastic would have happened if we’d stayed, Sam. Elliott doesn’t like us one bit. We got a dinner out of it.”

Sam brightened. “Such a line of bull, Johnny, I never heard.”

“Every word I spoke was the truth, Sam.”

“Huh? You told him we were undercover men.”

“I told him nothing of the kind. Mr. Towner may have assumed from the way I spoke that we were more than laborers in his factory, but the words I used were true.”

“Yeah, but that Black Hand stuff...”

“Nothing but the truth. I gave him a brief history of the Mafia and that was all. I told him that the Mafia had been extinct several times, which was true.”

Sam thought that over until they had left the club and were turning the corner of Michigan into Madison. Then he exclaimed, “Yeah, but you said this guy Piper called himself Piper—”

“That’s right, he did.”

“He did what?”

“He called himself Piper because that was his name.”

“The way you said it to the old boy it sounded like he was a... a Italian.”

“Speaking of Italians, Sam, what do you say we take a little run over to Little Italy...?”

Sam grabbed Johnny’s arm. “No, Johnny, no, that’s no place to go snooping around at night.”

“Little Italy’s no worse at night than any other place.”

“But I know what you’re figurin’ on doing. I’ve seen it before. You’re going to play detective and I’m going to get the hell beat out of me and we’re going to wind up broke.”

“We were broke this morning, Sam. Flat broke. Now, we’ve each got ninety cents in our pockets and we’ve had a couple of swell meals. But what about tomorrow?” Johnny shook his head. “We’ve no choice. Elliott’s going to give us away to his old man. We’ll have no jobs tomorrow, unless I can give the old man something to sink his teeth into.”

“So we lose our jobs? What of it? We never had jobs before.”

“But we had books to sell. We haven’t got any now and we won’t have until we get a stake. This job’s got to give us that stake.” Johnny hesitated. “And don’t forget, you found the murdered man and my leather knife was missing from my bench.”

Sam gasped. “You mean they — they suspect one of us?”

“And how! We’re walking the streets free men, but suppose the cops decide that we’re a couple of likely suspects, in view of the fact that they can’t pin the rap on anyone else. What then? We can’t prove we didn’t kill Al Piper.”

“But we never even knew the guy!”

“There are innocent men in jail right now,” said Johnny ominously.

Sam groaned. “All right, Johnny, we’ll go down to Little Italy. But I’m not going to like it. I’m not going to like it at all. Those Black Hands—”

“Don’t be silly!”

They walked to Wells Street and in a few minutes caught a northbound streetcar. They got off at Oak Street and walked west in one of the worst slum areas in the city of Chicago. It was still early evening and there were plenty of people on the street, men, women and children.

Chapter Eight

They crossed Sedgwick and the houses became even more dilapidated. Paint had not been used in the neighborhood, it seemed, since the turn of the century.

Johnny walked carelessly, like a man out for an evening stroll, but beside him Sam walked on the balls of his feet, tense and uneasy. He glanced apprehensively at open doorways.

They reached Milton Street and Johnny said, “Oak and Milton, the Death Corner.”

Sam shuddered. “Cut it out, Johnny!”

Johnny cleared his throat. “Kind of warm. A glass of beer wouldn’t go bad.”

“I’m not thirsty,” said Sam.

“Well, I am. And here’s a place — Tavern and Poolroom. Come on.”